I'm a celebrity!

So I'm sitting at home, fresh off my trip to Ontario and I suddenly pick up the phone, call the phone number I found on the internet for Amarosia Organic Garden and ask if I can volunteer for a day. They say yes, of course, and the next morning at 7AM, I arrive at the farm ready to see the nitty gritty part of organic farming. Hell I'd seen them enough times at their booth at the farmer's market, might as well see what they actually do in a day.

Rowena welcomed me and then promptly put me to work resetting some row covers that had blown off some lettuce. I then used the hoe you see above to weed out a bed where some spinach was trying to survive amongst the weeds. I just hope I got more weed than spinach. We'll see if they show up at the market in a few weeks. The rest of the day was spent washing and bagging lettuce to prepare for the market the next day. I also had a really good time working and talking with Serge who, he informed me, was working in agriculture out of interest. The guy has a degree in commerce but chooses to work in agriculture. Gives me something to think about. Especially seeing as I'm entering my first year of a commerce degree. Oh the irony!

Anyways, the highlight of my day was at lunch time. Now it's no secret that I love food but my host, Rowena, didn't know that. I was just some weird kid who wanted to work on the farm for a day. But I was really happy when we all sat down in the shade under some trees with a bowl of some tuna, tomato and cucumber mixture, a generous portion of olive loaf (I noticed that she gave me the biggest piece of the three), and some really good olive oil for dipping the bread. Everything was really delicious and was even nicer when shared under the shade after a full morning's work being harassed by mosquitoes and talking of sustainability and other such subjects.

So we're sitting there talking and I mention that I write a food blog. Rowena then says something like "Are you that spoon guy?". I say yes, wondering how the hell she knows about my blog...we both assume that nobody reads our blogs (her's is at the following address by the way http://www.amarosia.com/blog/). Turns out she'd wanted to invite me to the farm. Well there I was so it's a small world after all. Even on the internet. Maybe my anonymity has been compromised but who cares. I'll be back at the farm soon. Maybe on Wednesday morning. Like I told Rowena, I'll keep going back till I've dispelled any romantic notions I had about farming in general. If they never dispell well then maybe I'll be onto something. But we'll see.